Of course they would welcome alien life. But, a contrary view:Quote:
NASA confirmed the discovery of seven new exoplanets not too far from Earth, bringing humanity one step closer to finding other livable planets and, possibly, extraterrestrial life. Does Catholicism have the means to survive such a discovery? The pope, experts and theologians say yes.
A Crisis of Faith
So, just as a thought exercise, suppose a flying saucer landed in St. Peter's Square during the pope's weekly general audience. What would that mean for the Catholic faith?
As it happens, Pope Francis is three years ahead of us.
"If an expedition of Martians arrives and some of them come to us and if one of them says: 'Me, I want to be baptized!', what would happen?" the pope said during morning Mass in May of 2014.
Simple. For the pope of the peripheries, no matter how distant they may be, the Church does not turn others away.
... According to a 2011 study for the Royal Society, about 90 percent of believers felt that if intelligent life were to be discovered on other planets, they would not have a crisis of faith.
The truth is that religions, being in the business of understanding the place of human beings in the world, are naturally drawn to wonder at the immensity of the sky and the vastness of space.
Speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 Pope John Paul II said "truth cannot contradict truth," insisting that the Catholic Church had nothing to fear from scientific advancement and its challenges, and vice versa.
He was quoting Pope Leo XIII, who in 1891 had reestablished the historic Specula Vaticana, the Vatican Observatory. The Latin Dictionary issued by the Holy See even includes the acronym RIV, Res Inesplicata Volantes, meaning Unexplained Flying Object, or UFO.
https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/02/23/catholicism-handle-discovery-extraterrestrial-life/